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A placeholder date of December 30th indicates a likely release date of 2013, though this is pure speculation.

The title, Ghosts, would mean a departure from the Modern Warfare series. Between the Black Ops and Modern Warfare games, there has been little room in recent years for some of the more interesting Call of Duty installments.

Ghosts also makes me think of Ghost Recon and would appear to indicate a more stealth-based shooter. While that’s also speculation, a stealth game would be a welcome change for the franchise.

Activision (ATVI) has carved out a hugely successful run with their Call of Duty games. Black Ops 2 launched in 2012 and moved over 11 million units in its first week. Meanwhile, Modern Warfare 3 grossed over $400 million in its first 24 hours, making it the biggest entertainment launch of all time.

Despite these figures, some analysts have predicted that the franchise can’t continue to move units at this rate, pointing to Black Ops II’s sales as an indication that the series may be on the decline, something I think is far from certain.

If Ghosts really is the next Call of Duty game, and if it is a stealth title, we might also see a departure from the franchise’s corridor-shooter gameplay style. Stealth games are poorly suited to level design on rails.

This might also make sense from a business perspective. If Activision is worried that they can’t maintain this success year-over-year, some innovation in the series will be necessary. At the very least, Activision should consider the somewhat more open level design of EA’s Battlefield games. If I had it my way, they’d take a page from Crytek’s first Crysis game, which is an excellent example of open-ended level design and gameplay in a shooter.

Then again, part of Activision’s success has been sticking to a working formula. The old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies here. That may be risk-averse, but the numbers don’t lie. Activision-Blizzard have two of the most valuable IPs in the industry—Call of Duty and World of Warcraft—and they’ve kept them valuable largely by giving fans of both games what they want.

The listings on Tesco’s website pointed to current-generation releases, though it would come as little surprise if the next Call of Duty was cross-released on next-gen hardware as well.

I’ve reached out to Activision for comment and will report back if and when I hear anything.

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Wasn’t Ghost killed in MW2? Pretty sure he took a bullet to the dome and was burned like Joshua Graham in new vegas. Either way this looks so boring and unimpressive it’s unbelievable. Another brown n bloom military shooter. I mean Treyarch changed it around i Black Ops 2 (Multiplayer still sucked bu SP was kinda cool) and now were back to Modern Kilitary WOOO!

True, but what if there was a secret unit like Ghost from MW2? What if it’s going to be a stealth kind of game surrounding that unit doing missions that crossover from MW2? It would prove to be a good game.

I laughed at the writing of this, seriously, is this the best Forbes can do for gaming journalism?

“The title, Ghosts, would mean a departure from the Modern Warfare series.”

Really! This is how you talk about games? You expect your reader to have familiarity with the Call of Duty series, but you say something as obvious as that? Really?

What the does “there has been little room in recent years for some of the more interesting Call of Duty installments” mean? All there has been is Black Ops and Modern Warfare for the past 4 years, almost 6 if you consider that World at War is considered a part of the Black Ops series. What you say isn’t even factual, it’s literally not true. You lied. And if you want to claim that Black Ops and Modern Warfare aren’t “interesting” somehow (your sentence structure suggests this) then how has it done so well, publicly and critically? Are you speaking from a personal bias here?

Last, why the do you go and babble about “you feel”? “Ghosts also makes me think of Ghost Recon,” “some analysts have predicted that the franchise can’t continue to move units at this rate, pointing to Black Ops II’s sales as an indication that the series may be on the decline, something I think is far from certain,” “If I had it my way, they’d take a page from Crytek’s first Crysis game, which is an excellent example of open-ended level design and gameplay in a shooter,” reporting isn’t about how you feel, what you think, it’s about telling other people. You’re condemning video games to being mocked further by contributing this article to “games journalism.” Shape up your writing, or get off the stage.